Upcoming Governors Award honorees Angelina Jolie, Angela Lansbury, Steve Martin and Italian costume designer Piero Tosi have weighed in on receiving their special Oscars, which will be given out at a non-televised black-tie dinner November 16 (Tom Hanks and Anthony Hopkins are a couple of the big names feting the recipients). Quote highlights from the AP below.

"Paul Newman has been a hero of mine since I was a
little girl. Receiving the Hersholt award makes me feel like I am on the right
path but also reminds me I have more to do... It is an honor and a pleasure to
work on behalf of refugee children and victims of rape. No matter how much I
have to do, how busy my life is, I am always aware that the challenges are
absolutely nothing in comparison to what they face on a daily basis."

Angela Lansbury on receiving the lifetime achievement award:

"It's a nod for everything I've done, in a sense.
That's what it means to me: It is really an acknowledgement of a good career, a
good career as an actress in Hollywood… My early days at MGM were thrilling and
exciting beyond words because it all happened so fast. I
started off with three big, huge movies ['Gaslight,' 'National Velvet' and 'The Picture of Dorian Grey']."

Steve Martin on receiving an honorary lifetime achievement award:

"It goes back to the '80s and '90s — that all that work
was actually registering with somebody in a kind of serious way. I and all the
people I worked with, we took it very seriously and we worried a lot about it,
so it's quite a compliment to have it regarded in some way. It's quite an
honor.

It doesn't bother me that traditionally, comedies don't get
recognized on a yearly basis. But in the honorary academy list, there are a lot
of comedians and funny people recognized."

Piero Tosi on receiving an honorary lifetime achievement award:

"Mostly, I dreamt a lot watching American movies of the '30s
and '40s. That wonderful season fed me throughout my
career."

Thompson on Hollywood

Born and raised in Manhattan, Anne Thompson grew up going to the Thalia and The New Yorker and wound up at grad Cinema Studies at NYU. She worked at United Artists and Film Comment before heading west as that magazine's west coast editor. She wrote for the LA Weekly, Sight and Sound, Empire, The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly before serving as West Coast Editor of Premiere. She wrote for The Washington Post, The London Observer, Wired, More, and Vanity Fair, and did staff stints at The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. She eventually took her blog Thompson on Hollywood to Indiewire. She taught film criticism at USC Critical Studies, and continues to host the fall semester of “Sneak Previews” for UCLA Extension.